Schmidt Number: S-0985

On-line since: 15th January, 2013

It is
important that we should speak about the higher degrees of
Freemasonry, because this manner of instruction sets itself special
tasks, certain aspects of which will be discussed in the near future.
We are dealing, in the main, with a special rite, that is called the
combined rite of Memphis and Misraim.
(Note 1)
I have already mentioned
that the Memphis and Misraim rite possesses a great number of
degrees, that ninety-five degrees must be undertaken, and that
usually the Supreme Leaders of the Grand Orients — i.e. those
of Germany, Great Britain and America possess the ninety-sixth
degree. These degrees are so arranged that up to the end of about the
eightieth to eighty-ninth degree they are divided up in the way I
shall presently describe to you.

From
about the eight-seventh degree onwards start the real occult degrees
into which no one can be initiated who has not made a thorough study
of the subject. I always make the reservation that in Europe there is
nobody who has undertaken all these degrees or who has really
undergone an occult Freemasonry training. But that is of no
particular concern as far as Freemasonry goes, because its renewed
task still awaits it in the future, and, when the time comes, the
Organisation will be available; the vessel will be there which is
needed to carry out what has to be achieved.

Now I
must mention the various branches of Freemasonry and their
tendencies, even if I am only to indicate some thing briefly. First
of all, it is to be borne in mind that the whole of the masonic
higher degrees trace back to a personality often spoken about but
equally very much misunderstood. He was particularly misunderstood by
nineteenth century historians, who have no idea of the difficult
situations an occultist can meet in life. This personality is the
ill-famed and little understood Cagliostro. The so-called Count
Cagliostro,
(Note 2)
in whom an individuality concealed itself which was
recognised in its true nature only by the highest initiates,
attempted originally to bring Freemasonry in London to a higher
stage. For during the last third of the eighteenth century,
Freemasonry had fairly well reached the state that I have described.
He did not succeed in London at that time. He then tried in Russia,
and also at The Hague. Everywhere he was unsuccessful, for very
definite reasons.

Then,
however, he was successful in Lyons, forming an occult masonic lodge
of the Philalethes [Searchers after Truth] out of a group of local
masons, which was called the Lodge of Triumphing Wisdom. The purpose
of this Lodge was specified by Cagliostro. What you can read about it
is, however, nothing but the work of ignorant people. What can be
said about it is only an indication. Cagliostro was concerned with
two things: firstly, with instructions enabling one to produce the
so-called Philosopher's Stone; secondly, with creating an
understanding of the mystic pentagram. I can only give you a hint of
the meaning of these two things. They may be treated with a deal of
scorn, but they are not to be taken merely symbolically, they are
based on real facts.

The
Philosopher's Stone has a specific purpose, which was stated by
Cagliostro; it is meant to prolong human life to a span of 5,527 years.
(Note 3)
To a freethinker that appears laughable. In fact, however,
it is possible, by means of special training, to prolong life
indefinitely by learning to live outside the physical body. Anyone,
however, who imagined that no death, in the conventional sense of the
word, could strike down an adept, would have quite a false view of
the matter. So, whoever imagined that an adept could not be hit and
killed by a falling roof slate, would also be wrong. To be sure, that
would usually only occur if the adept allowed it. We are not dealing
here with physical death, but with the following. Physical death is
only an apparent occurrence for him who has understood the
Philosopher's Stone for himself, and has learned to separate it. For
other people it is a real happening, which signifies a great division
in their life. For he who understands how to use the Philosopher's
Stone in the way that Cagliostro intended his pupils to do, death is
only an apparent occurrence. It does not even constitute a decisive
turning point in life; it is, in fact, something which is only there
for the others who can observe the adept and say that he is dying. He
himself, however, does not really die. It is much more the case that
the person concerned has learned to live without his physical body;
that he has learned during the course of life to let all those things
take place in him gradually, which happen suddenly in the physical
body at the moment of death. Everything has already taken place in
the body of the person concerned, which otherwise takes place at
death. Death is then no longer possible, for the said person has long
ago learned to live without the physical body. He lays aside the
physical body in the same way that one takes off a raincoat, and he
puts a new body on just as one puts a new raincoat on.

Now that
will give you an inkling. That is one lesson which Cagliostro taught
— the Philosopher's Stone — which allows physical death to become a
matter of small importance.

The second lesson was the knowledge of the
Pentagram. That is the ability to distinguish the five bodies of man
one from another. When someone says: physical body, etheric body,
astral body, Kama-Manas body, causal body, [higher Manas or spirit
self] these are mere words, or at best, abstract ideas. Nothing,
however, is achieved by that. A person living today as a rule hardly
knows the physical body; only one who knows the Pentagram learns to
know the five bodies. One does not know a body by living in it, but
by having it as an object. That is what distinguishes an average
person from one who has gone through such a schooling that the five
bodies have become objects. The ordinary person does indeed live in
these five bodies: however, he lives in them, he cannot step
outside [of himself] and look at them. At best he can view his
physical body when he looks down at his torso, or sees it in a
mirror. Those pupils of Cagliostro who had followed his methods would
thereby have achieved what some Rosicrucians achieved, who had
basically undergone a training with the same orientation. They were
in a school of the great European adepts, who taught that the five
bodies were realities, and not to remain as mere concepts. That is
called ‘Knowing the Pentagram’ and ‘Moral
Rebirth’.

I will
not say that the pupils of Cagliostro never achieved anything. In
general they went as far as comprehending the astral body. Cagliostro
was extremely skilful in imparting a view of the astral body. Long
before the catastrophe broke over him, he had succeeded in starting
schools in Paris, Belgium, St. Petersburg and a few other places in
Europe, in addition to the one in Lyons, out of which later emerged
at least a few people who had the basis for some to proceed to the
eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth higher degrees of Freemasonry.
Thus, Count Cagliostro at least had an important influence on occult
masonry in Europe before ending his days in the prison in Rome. The
world should not actually pronounce judgment on Cagliostro. As I have
already indicated, when people speak about Cagliostro, it is as
though Hottentots were to speak about the erection of an overhead
railway, because the relationship of apparently immoral outward acts
to world happenings is not understood.

I remarked
earlier that the French Revolution arose out of the secret societies
(Note 4)
of the occultists, and if these currents were investigated further, they
would lead back to the school of the adepts.

It may
be that what Mabel Collins depicted in her novel Flita
(Note 5)
is hard to understand. In it she describes, rather grotesquely, how an
adept has the World Chessboard in front of him in a secret place, and
lets the pieces play, and how he, so to speak, controls the Karma of
a continent upon one very simple little board. It does not quite take
place as it is described there, but something on a much greater scale
than that does actually happen, of which what is described in
Flita gives only a
distorted picture.

Now the
French Revolution certainly proceeded from such things as this. There
is a well-known story contained in the writings of the Countess
d'Adhémar. It related that, before the outbreak of the French
Revolution, the Countess d’Adhémar, one of the
ladies-in-waiting to Marie-Antoinette, received a visit from the
Count of St. Germain.
(Note 6)
He wanted to be presented to the Queen and
to beg audience of the King. Louis XVI's minister, however, was the
enemy of the Count of St. Germain, who therefore was not allowed into
the King's presence. But he described to the Queen with great
accuracy and detail the major perils which were looming ahead.
Regrettably, however, his warnings were ignored. It was on that
occasion that he uttered the great saying which was based on truth:
‘They who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind’
(Note 7)
and he added that he had uttered this saying millenia previously, and it
had been repeated by Christ. Those were words which were
unintelligible to the ordinary person.

But the
Count of St. Germain was right. I will only add a few more touches
which are quite correct. In books about the Count of St. Germain you
can read that he died in 1784
(Note 8)
at the court of the Landgrave of Hessen,
(Note 9)
who later became one of the most advanced German Freemasons. The Landgrave
nursed him until the end. But the Countess d'Adhémar recounts in her
memoirs
(Note 10)
that he appeared to her long after the year 1784, and that she saw him six
more times long after that. In reality he was at that time, in 1790, with
some Rosicrucians in Vienna
(Note 11)
and said, which is perfectly true, that
he was obliged to retire to the Orient for the span of 85 years, and
that after that time people would again become aware of his activity
in Europe. 1875 is the year of the founding of the Theosophical
Society. These things are all connected to ether in a certain
way.

In the
school founded by the Landgrave of Hessen, also, there were two main
concerns: the Philosopher's Stone and the Knowledge of the
Pentagram. The Freemasonry founded by the Landgrave of Hessen at that
time continued to exist in a rather diluted form. In fact, the whole
of Freemasonry, as I have described it, is called the Egyptian rite,
the rite of Memphis and Misraim. The latter traces its origin back to
King Misraim who came from Assyria — from the Orient — and, after the
conquest of Egypt, was initiated into the Egyptian mysteries. These
are indeed the mysteries which originate from ancient Atlantis. An
unbroken tradition exists from that time. Modern Freemasonry is only
a continuation of what was established then in Egypt.

Before I
go into details I would like to say that Freemasonry which extends to
the higher degrees is something which, in its more intimate aspect,
is quite different from the normal craft masonry. The ordinary craft
masonry rests on a kind of democratic principle, and if the
democratic principle is to be applied to matters of knowledge, it is
obvious that it will lead to a state of affairs in which the brothers
who have congregated together will mainly do nothing but bring
forward their own views. Truth, however, is something about which one
cannot hold one's own views. One either knows a truth or one is
ignorant of it. No one can say that the three angles of a triangle
add up to 725 degrees instead of to 180 degrees.

When
people sit together and have a discussion they talk about their own
views, sometimes also about the most elevated things. But all of this
exists on the level of illusion, and is just as irrelevant as what a
person says who is ignorant of the true sum of the angles of a
triangle and only gives his own opinion about it. Just as one is
unable to discuss whether the sum of the angles of a triangle have
this or that many degrees, so one is also unable to have a discussion
about higher truths. That is why the democratic principle is not
applicable to matters of knowledge, for there is no basis of argument
on which to discuss them. What distinguishes masonry of the higher
degrees from craft masonry is that one learns to know the truth step
by step. Whoever has recognised a thing can no longer hold more than
one opinion about it. One has either recognised it, or one has not
done so. The ninety-six degrees have, therefore, a certain
justification

At the head is the so-called Sovereign Sanctuary,
who is identical with what is known as the Grand Orient in
Freemasonry, and is in possession of the real occult knowledge.
(Note 12)
He knows the path and the speech of that which can be picked out in
the masonic manifesto,
(Note 13)
and which makes it possible to hear the
voice of the Wise Men of the East. When he has reached this step, he
is certainly in a position to hear the voice of the Wise Masters. So
far, however, must one have worked one's way up, that one is in
possession of very definite knowledge, and also of definite inner
qualities and inner capacities which by no means purely cover
themselves with the conventional bourgeois virtues, but are something
more meaningful and intimate. I would note that [compared with] what
we have been speaking about here, what
theosophical literature reveals of a theoretical or practical nature
forms only an elementary part. So that the theoretical side of the
higher degrees of Freemasonry far surpasses what can be divulged in
popular theosophy. What can be disclosed there is dependent upon the
permission given by the adepts to allow these things to be
popularised up to a certain grade. But it is not possible to make all
knowledge public.

It is correct to say that humanity will be
astonished by some of the discoveries which will be made in the near
future. But they will be rather premature discoveries and will
thereby cause some havoc. The task of the Theosophical Society
consists mainly in preparing people for such things. For instance,
what I described at the beginning as the knowledge of the
Philosopher's Stone was formerly much more universally known
than it is today and, indeed, it was known already during a certain
period of the Atlantean Epoch. At that time the possibility of
conquering death was really something which was commonly known. I
only wish to remark that I was not very happy about allowing this
truth to appear in print recently. Therefore where this should have
come in the discussion about Atlantean times in the Luzifer article,
a row of dots was printed in place of those things which may not yet
be communicated.
(Note 14)
It cannot even yet be communicated in its
entirety. There is a very similar piece of information recorded by a
very advanced medium, which appeared in the Theosophical Review
(Note 15)
dealing with exactly the same thing in a rather
different form. The overcoming of death in Atlantean times is
naturally preserved in the memories of the individuals concerned
without their being aware of it. There are many people reincarnated
today who passed through that period in their former lives and who
are led to such revelations through their own memories. That will
first of all lead to a kind of overrating of certain medical
discoveries. People will imagine that medical science was the
discoverer of such things. In reality people will have been led to
them through their own memories of Atlantean times.

Certain
things will mature in the near future and therefore we shall speak
about them. This makes it necessary to see the need of a step by step
advance in the gaining of knowledge. This step by step advance is
therefore rightly emphasised by those who wish to revive the Misraim
and Memphis Rite at the present time. Even if this does not succeed
during the next year or two, one must not think that failure in such
things is of any significance There is a man at the head of the
American Misraim movement, whose significant character constitutes a
sure guarantee of constancy in the advance. This is the excellent
Freemason, John Yarker.
(Note 16)

It is
difficult to say at the moment what form the matter will take in
Great Britain and Germany. You will perceive that one must reckon
with the human material concerned, and that the German movement,
therefore — if it is to concern itself with such matters -will also
have to reckon with what is available in this direction. If genuine
occultists are to take part in such things they must needs be active
in one or other direction. They will not always be able to take part
in such things. Even the Masters, when they prescribe something of
this kind, have to take their cue from great universal
laws.

If,
therefore, you hear something concerning the German Misraim-Memphis
tendency, you should not imagine that this now has significance for
the future. It is only the frame into which a good picture may later
be put. This German Misraim Order stands under the overall guidance
of a certain Reuss,
(Note 17)
who holds the actual leadership in Great Britain and Germany today.
Then, the well-known Carl Kellner
(Note 18)
also works in this direction. The actual literary work is in the
hands of Dr. Franz Hartmann,
(Note 19)
who serves the Misraim Rite with
his pen to the very utmost. That is as much as I can impart to you in
this or that fragment from here or there, concerning this movement.

Now I can
only characterise what is involved here in general terms. There are
four kinds of instruction given in the- Misraim Rite.
(Note 20)
The ninety-six degrees can therefore be achieved through four different
kinds of instruction or disciplines. These four disciplines, by means
of which one advances, are the following: First, the so-called
symbolic instruction or discipline. By means of this, certain symbols
can be recognised as facts. The person concerned is instructed in the
occult laws of nature, through which quite definite effects are
produced through cyclic movements in humanity.

The
second kind of instruction or discipline is the so-called philosophic
one. It is the Egyptian hermetic discipline. It consists of a more
theoretical kind of instruction. The third kind of instruction is the
so-called mystical discipline, which is based more upon inner
development, and which, if rightly applied, would lead above all else
to the appropriate manipulation of the Philosopher's Stone,
that is, to the overcoming of death. That is essentially expressed in
one of the sentences which I read out to you which stated that by
means of Freemasonry everyone is able to convince himself of the fact
of immortality. It depends, however, as the Cabbala says, whether
this is requested or not. The fourth kind of instruction is the
Cabbalistic one. It consists in the recognition of the principles of
world harmony in their truth and reality, the ten basic ... [Gap]

By means
of each of the four paths one can rise to a higher perception through
the Misraim Rite. But there is actually no one within the ranks of
Freemasonry today who would accept the responsibility of giving
practical guidance to anyone, because those concerned have not
undergone these things themselves, and the whole affair is a
provisional arrangement and only intended to provide a framework for
something which is still to come. It is possible that this framework
will be filled with occult knowledge. Occult knowledge has to be cast
in existing moulds. The important thing is that such moulds exist in
the world. If there is molten metal and no mould into which to pour
it, you are unable to do anything but let it run out in one lump. So
it is also with spiritual currents. It is important that moulds exist
into which can be poured the spiritual metal. That is symbolised by
the Molten Sea. That will become recognised when what is now
seemingly only vegetating receives form for outward
manifestation.

Last
time I read to you from a speech by the English Prime Minister Balfour.
(Note 21)
From that, then, it is already noticeable that certain things are physical
truths today, that are in primeval occult perceptions. If you read Blavatsky's
The Secret Doctrine,
you will find there a passage relating to electricity, which expresses
word for word what physicists are now gradually arriving at. What is
written there is, however, only a hint at what is actually involved.
It is the physical atom which is in question. This was misunderstood
by all outward — but not occult — science until four or five years
ago. It was taken to be [body having] mass in space. Nowadays one is
beginning to recognise that this physical atom bears the same
relationship to the force of electricity that a lump of ice bears to
the water from which it has been frozen. If you conceive of water
becoming frozen to ice, so is the ice also water, and in like manner
the atom of physics is nothing else but frozen electricity. If you
can grasp this point completely and were to go through the statements
about the atom contained in all the scientific journals until a year
or two ago, and were to regard them as rubbish, you will have more or
less the right idea. It is only very recently that science has been
able to form a conception of what the atom is. It stands [in the same
relationship to electricity] as ice does to water out of which it has
been frozen. The physical atom is condensed electricity. I regard
Balfour's speech as something of extreme importance.
(Note 22)

It is ...
[Gap]
something which has been published since 1875 [1879?].
(Note 23)
The fact has been known to occultists for millenia. Now one is beginning
to realise that the physical atom is condensed electricity. But there
is still a second thing to be considered: what electricity itself is.
That is still unknown. They are ignorant of one thing: namely, where
the real nature of electricity must be sought. This nature of
electricity cannot be discovered by means of any outer experiments or
through outer observation. The secret which will be discovered is
that electricity — when one learns to view it from a particular level
— is exactly the same as what human thought is. Human thought is the
same thing as electricity, viewed one time from the inside, another
time from the outside.

Whoever
is now aware of what electricity is, knows that there is something
living within him which, in a frozen state, forms the atom. Here is
the bridge from human thought to the atom. One will learn to know the
building stones of the physical world; they are tiny condensed
monads, condensed electricity. In that moment when human beings
realise this elementary occult truth about thought, electricity and
the atom, in that same moment they will have understood something
which is of the utmost importance for the future and for the whole of
the sixth post-Atlantean epoch. They will have learned how to build
with atoms through the power of thinking.

This will
be the spiritual current which will again have to be cast in the
moulds which have been prepared for it by occultists over millenia.
But because the human race had to pass through the era of the
development of understanding and to look away from the true inner
work, the moulds have become mere shells. But they still retain their
function as moulds, and the right kind of knowledge will have to be
poured into them.

The occult investigator obtains his truth from the
one side, the physical scientist from the other. Just as Freemasonry
has developed out of working masonry, out of the building of
cathedrals and temples, so one will in future learn to build with the
smallest of building blocks, with entities of condensed electricity.
That will call for a new kind of masonry. Then industry will not be
able to carry on any more as it does today. It will become so chaotic
and will only be able to work purely out of the struggle for existence
per se, as long as man does not know ... [Gap] Then it would be
possible for someone in Berlin to drive into the city in a cab, while in
Moscow a disaster which he had caused was taking place. And nobody at
all would have any inkling that he had been the cause of it. Wireless
telegraphy is the beginning of this. What I have portrayed is in the
future. There are only two possibilities available: Either things go
on chaotically, as industry and technology have done until now, in
which case it will lead to whoever has the possession of these things
being able to cause havoc, or else it will be cast in the moral mould
of Freemasonry. *This last sentence appears as follows in the notes
of Marie Steiner-von Sivers: ‘These things will either continue
chaotically, as industry and technology have done until now, or
harmoniously, as is the aim of Freemasonry; then the highest
development will be achieved.’

Question:
Why is the Catholic Church so antagonistic towards Freemasonry?

Answer:
The Catholic Church does not want what is coming in the future. Pius IX
was initiated into Freemasonry. He tried, through the Chapter of
Clermont, to bring about a connection between the Jesuits and the
Freemasons. That did not succeed, and therefore the old enmity
between these two remained. Our Jesuits know little about these
things, and the clergy are also unaware of what is involved. The
actual clergy ...
[Large gap]

The Trappists
have to keep silent, for it is known that by doing so an important faculty
of inspired speech in the next life is implanted. That is indeed only to
be understood through a knowledge of reincarnation.